“Games of Thrones” not returning until 2019, says Sophie Turner

HBO/Macall B. Polay(NEW YORK) — Maybe this will be good news for Game of Thrones fans who don’t want the series to end, but bad news for fans anxiously awaiting the show’s eighth and final season: star Sophie Turner says it isn’t coming until 2019.

HBO hasn’t announced an official air date, just promising the show sometime in 2018 or 2019, but Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, tells Variety in a new interview, “Game of Thrones comes out in 2019.”

The final season is already two months into shooting and Turner says that on the job the cast and crew is very conscious of the impending end of the series.

“When we all had the read-through for the final season, it was very, very emotional,” she says. “For the first time in Thrones history, we had everyone there. All of the Americans wanted to come over. Every single cast member was pretty much there. We’re all kind of feeling the end of it coming. We’re all staying in town a little longer, going out for more meals, trying to get together more. We’re all trying not to take it for granted any more.”

Of course the end of GoT won’t be the end of fans’ chances to see Turner work. She also stars as Jean Grey in the latest films in the X-Men franchise and will be the central character in the next installment, Dark Phoenix, which arrives a little before 2019 — in November 2018.